M.2 drive question

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  • wtburnette

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    I'm looking to upgrade my PC components as my current mobo\CPU combo is 10+ years old. I was looking at getting a Ryzen 7 3700x with an Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI) motherboard. When looking at other components, I noticed there's a difference between SATA M.2 drives and NVMe M.2 drives. I'm not sure this board supports NVMe or not. The specs state the M.2 slots support PCIe 4.0 x4 mode and SATA mode. I tried researching to verify PCIe 4.0 x4 mode and NVMe are the same thing but my limited research wasn't clear. Does anyone know if this is the same thing so I can pick up a NVMe M.2 drive for this upgrade?
     

    BravoMike

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    schmart

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    Yes you can.

    NVMe runs on PCIe which is backwards compatible as well as compatible with fewer lanes.

    Some chat forums mention that the board has a BIOS area specifically to setup the m.2 slots so check that if things don't work at first.
    --Rick
     

    MnemonicMonkey

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    Yes. Nvme and PCI aren't exactly the same, but Nvme drives are made to connect to a PCI interface as opposed to going through an SATA interface. I believe Nvme will give you a little better performance, but probably more theoretical than practical. Drive specs will have the biggest impact, unless there's something wonky with the motherboard.

    I'm getting ready to do a similar build for a video editing rig at church. Good choice.

    Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
     

    wtburnette

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    Thank you all for your help. I've been out of the PC building loop for a long time and am definitely not up on the latest info. Glad to know my choices seem to be reasonable and that I can get an NVMe drive. I'm looking at the Samsung 970 EVO, so hopefully that will be a decent drive for my system.
     

    wtburnette

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    Still actually debating if I want to do this upgrade, or limp along with my current system being just slightly slower than needed. I was really hoping to see much life I could get out of it... :cool:
     

    Rubix

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    I don't know your needs, but if you add a SATA III SSD that will speed the old system up. A SSD is the single largest improvement any normal computer user will experience. 10+ years is pretty long in the tooth for CPUs. Depending on your needs I'd say a refresh may be needed.

    If you have a very demanding workload a NVMe will be of use, but for normal usage I doubt anyone could tell if the computer had a SATA III SSD or NVMe. NVMe is ~33% more than a SSD per GB. If you're really wanting to get as much life as possible out of your desktop I'd say give Linux a try. Depending on the specs of your current machine a "lightweight" distro might be in order.

    I just added a Western Digital SSD and a stick of 8GB RAM to a 8 year old i5 Dell Inspiron for a friend and it works great. 1080p 60Hz, Windows 10, office productivity, Netflix yadda yadda yadda. I wouldn't use it for 4K video conversions, but otherwise it works great.
     

    wtburnette

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    The system has had an SSD for the last 6 or 7 years, but when I replaced it with a new drive I realized it wasn't performing anywhere near where it should. Somewhere around half, due to the age of the SATA controller. I'm hopeful that updating to newer technology will provide me with a speed boost that I'll hopefully even notice... ;)
     

    Tombs

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    I'd strongly recommend against the ASUS TUF series or any ASUS board for that matter in X570.

    Gigabyte is building the best X570 boards and providing the best bios support for this current generation. Now on X470 ASUS did have the best boards, but that's not the case right now.

    May not seem like a big issue, but when you're getting patches for a bios issue within a week that takes ASUS months to push out, you'll thank me.
     

    wtburnette

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    Interesting, the review I read seemed to indicate that Asus was pretty solid and that Gigabyte had some issues with BIOS. Granted that was a quick skim reading over one review. I'll have to look up some others as well. Thanks for the heads up.
     

    Rubix

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    As you already have the "SSD" experience and your desktop still seems "laggy" you could try a fresh reinstall of the OS to see if that clears up some weird configuration issue. Just backup what you need to. A 10+ year old CPU is what sticks out to me. I've built quite a few desktops and one thing I've come to realize is people always think they need more than what they do. If you're a serious gamer or do serious audio/video production a powerful custom build would be justified. If all you do is office productivity stuff/email/youtube/stream any of the current generation tech in the "budget" category will be enough for your needs.

    Seeing as you already have a desktop I'd salvage the power supply, if it is salvageable and the SSD and build around that. I imagine you're going to lose your OS (if it's windows) since it's basically tied to the motherboard, unless you have a retail version of Windows 10. Of course, everyone always says to buy eBay keys for $5 or from a reseller, but I'd go with a Linux distro over Windows. The only time I use windows is if work forces me to or its on someone else's machine. I'm not a gamer, I have no use for Windows.

    Also, computer parts are just like ammo/firearms now, short supply.
     

    wtburnette

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    Yeah, I'm trying to decide if some of the lag is perception, more than anything else. Benchmarks show the SSD is running a lot slower than it should be and I'm curious if that leads me to notice lag where it might not actually exist. Back in the day, I used to be a hardware enthusiast. I was always up on the latest chipsets, motherboards, CPU's, graphics cards, etc. I also used to be a pretty hardcore gamer and pushed my hardware pretty hard. When I build this rig back in like 2010, it was very nice hardware for the day. I started with a Core i7 930, but switched to a Core i7 965 Extreme that a buddy of mine gave me. I ran that CPU overclocked to 4.0Ghz for 5 or 6 years. You should see the cooler on it, a huge Thermalright HR-02 Macho. Freaking thing is massive. I'm kinda surprised that after 10+ years of use the darn thing hasn't buckled the mobo or anything. Anyway, all that said, the rest of the system is pretty hefty still. I'm using a 1k watt Corsair PSU, the case is a huge Coolermaster HAF series full tower beast with tons of room inside. I think even the GTX 1060 video card is okay for my gaming needs, since I don't game much. Heck, for giggles I decided to post a pic to show off that huge cooler:

    c4rp9W7h.jpg


    I know, I used to be much better at cable management, but have gotten lazy over the years.

    Anyway, maybe I'm just trying to convince myself of the need to drop coin on a new build. I'm sure I could probably keep this system going another year or two and probably be fine, but I'm thinking I've finally caught the upgrade bug again. For someone who used to upgrade their PC every two years without a fail, it seems like 10 years has finally been too long. I don't know. Hopefully the hardware I pick will last me another good long while before the bug bites me again :cool:
     

    Tombs

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    Just build a new rig. I recommend going overkill on your motherboard and ram speeds. You do not need more than a 550 watt PSU for any modern system with a single videocard. I'd also look up the various settings that affect SSD speeds, as you may have a feature enabled that slows it down dramatically.

    Here's my rig, built it a year ago and it's still doing beautifully, 3900X and a crosshair 7 mobo.

    oRBKKtt.jpg
     

    wtburnette

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    Very nice. Good looking system. Part of the desire to build came from my son upgrading his rig about 6 months ago. I think the desire started then and is just now kicking in.

    I'm not looking to go too high end. Part of that is that I don't want to spend more than ~$700. Like I said, the Corsair 1k/watt PSU is still going strong and I have no need to swap it out. Same with the video card. It's managing the speed I need at the resolution I use, so it's good. When it stops performing well I'll grab something else, but graphic card prices are stupid high, so I'll avoid that until it's needed. I wouldn't think there's anything disabled or enabled for SSD that would impact the performance, but I'l check. I know I have it set to ACHI, which is the best speed for the old 2.5" SSD's. Not sure there are other settings in the BIOS which impact it? Might have to research it a bit. I priced out the parts I've been looking at and they'll run between $650 - $700 depending on where I buy, so right in budget. I may run to see my son this weekend in OH, so grabbing everything at Microcenter might be my best bet. Will keep the thread updated with what I do.
     

    Tombs

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    I can't remember the setting, but it's something to do with storing data in event of an unexpected shut down. It's under device manager. If you have it set wrong, it'll cut your SSD speeds in half and isn't necessary on an SSD anyway.

    If you're keeping your current video card and updating your system, I recommend just getting a ryzen 3600. Get a 3600x if it's on sale.
    Should be able to do ram, mobo, and processor for around $550
     

    wtburnette

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    Thank you for posting that. Yes, that's how mine's set. Good info to keep in mind though! Out of curiosity, why the advice for the 3600 or 3600x? Is the 3700x just too expensive for not enough gain? It seemed like a good sweet spot CPU to me, but like I said, I've been out of the hardware game for a long time.
     

    Tombs

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    Thank you for posting that. Yes, that's how mine's set. Good info to keep in mind though! Out of curiosity, why the advice for the 3600 or 3600x? Is the 3700x just too expensive for not enough gain? It seemed like a good sweet spot CPU to me, but like I said, I've been out of the hardware game for a long time.

    Because if you don't need 8 cores, you can put that money towards a better cooling solution or memory. Better memory will benefit you vastly more than 2 more cores unless you're doing lots of blender rendering.

    If you're gaming 6 cores is plenty, if you're gaming and streaming your gaming, then 8 cores would be advisable. Game performance between the 3600x and 3700x is identical, in fact from the 3600x to the 3950x, they all perform pretty much the same in games. The lower core count parts can sometimes perform better in games than the higher core count models, due to some programming weirdness with a lot of games.

    Make absolutely sure before you commit to a motherboard, that you also read the QVL listing for the motherboard. Try to find 3200mhz memory or better with a timing of CL14. Or 3600mhz with a timing of CL16. Make absolutely sure you only buy memory the manufacturer recommends and validated at that speed on that board, or you will be in for some headaches.
     
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